


sky is burning but at least we know we're warm

by fragileanimals



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9877127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragileanimals/pseuds/fragileanimals
Summary: Jyn encounters something that reminds her of Scarif, and is in need of comforting. Luckily, Cassian is there to provide it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble I came up with when I was, well, in the shower. And then it wouldn't let me go. Hope you enjoy!

Jyn Erso has never had a warm shower.

In fact, she can probably count the number of times she’s been warm -- or at least pleasantly so -- in her entire twenty-two years of life on one hand. Lah’mu had been damp, earthy, and not particularly welcoming to the strange, small family that had sought refuge in its plains; Wobani had burned in the day and frozen in the night, something her prison-order blankets had not protected much against. She’s lost track of the planets in-between, but she certainly hadn’t been to any of them seeking physical comfort. Even Jedha, for all its orange rock and dusty desert appearance, had had a bite to its wind.

She doesn't remember much of living in Empire quarters. What she does remember has nothing to do with warmth and everything to do with fear.

Jyn Erso has never had a warm shower, which is why it doesn’t occur to her that such a luxury exists. In her travels, she's only ever used waterless sonics. Which is why she doesn’t expect anything other than frigid water, lukewarm at best, to come from Yavin IV’s old-fashioned pipes when she twists the handle as far left as it’ll go.

There’s a sort of rattling sound, and then water sprays from the overhead pipe alarmingly, so unlike either the sonics or the gentle baths she vaguely remembers having received as a child.

Instead, this water is intrusive, and so hot it sears her skin. She doesn't make a noise, doesn't shout, even though her body feels as though it’s on fire -- those instincts have long since been trained out of her. 

No, she’s simply in the refresher one moment, with the knowledge that Cassian waits for her outside, typing up a mission brief on his datapad, and the next she’s back on Scarif’s beach, her arms around her dying partner, waiting for the superheated blast wave to take them both from this life.

Suddenly she can hear the elemental roar of what is sure to be burning destruction, can see the paradisiacal sea before her whipping into a deadly frenzy. Can taste the heat as it hits her.

Startled, she stumbles back into the wall, out of the spray of water. Dimly, she registers the collision of the back of her head with the wall -- not hard enough to bleed, but enough to make her dizzy. She slides down the wall without protest, her chin coming to rest on her knees.

From the other room, Cassian calls her name, his voice lifting in a question, but she doesn't hear. 

A few moments later, the door bangs open, and there he is.

Cassian crouches by her side. “Jyn. What happened? Are you hurt?”

She just looks at him, wet hair clinging to her face. Feeling very small and jumbled. It does not occur to her to attempt to cover herself, because it does not occur to her that she is naked.

He must see the muted panic in her eyes, because he doesn’t say anything else. Just reaches his hand, testing, into the spraying water, and immediately swears at the temperature. He looks to her, then back at the shower, murmurs something foreign and gentle.

He turns the handle so that the water is all the way cold, and slides down next to her clothes and all. Still favoring his wounded leg, he lands a bit awkwardly, but makes no complaint.

As is everything else, water is rationed on base. After five minutes, it sputters to a stop, leaving them water-speckled and shivering on the tile floor.

After a moment, Cassian reaches up and snags a towel from the rack, which he settles around her shoulders, nudging her chin up with his hand to tuck it beneath her chin. She burrows into the material, leaning her wet head into his shoulder.

\--

Back in the room, he turns around so she can get dressed. Her brain works slowly, mechanically, coming back online. _Underwear. Shirt. Pants._

It’s been a long time since something has rattled her this way-- especially something so terribly mundane as taking a warm shower. Jyn Erso does not get rattled. She hardly ever breaks down; the only notable exception being the death of her father on Eadu. But that had been appropriate.

What is not appropriate was to be physically unable to take a shower without feeling as though her skin is being slow-roasted as she waits in the sand for death or rescue, whichever comes first.

“Jyn.” His voice, when it finally comes, is strange. Soft. She can tell without looking his position to her; she knows the sound of his movements, from the tilt of his head to the hands clasped neat and soldierly behind his back. His face is still respectfully toward the door, still facing away to afford her at least some privacy. She’s never met so considerate a spy.

She wonders absently how he’s lasted so long, with a heart like that. He’s done terrible things, to be certain -- but then, they all have, haven’t they? Could one even become a part of something like the Rebellion without having been driven there by cruelty and violence, either their own or someone else’s?

Still: all this violence and he had still been willing to open himself up to her as a home. In a hundred, in a thousand lifetimes, she could never be strong enough for that.

“Jyn,” he says, again, a little louder, bringing her out of her thoughts.

“You can go, Cassian,” she says, voice grating to her own ears, throat dry. She can’t bring her eyes up from the floor. “I’m fine-- I’ll be fine. Just need some sleep. You probably do, too.” She does her best to sound easy, casual, but falls short.

He shakes his head, turning to her. “Don’t worry about what I need.”

_Then you don’t worry about what I need,_ she bites back. “I’ll be fine,” she says, again. “I always am.” And if there’s the smallest trace of bitterness there, well, she can’t help it. Fine has been, more often than not, a requirement for survival.

“I know you are,” he says, stepping closer. In the evening light, his dark eyes are unreadable. “I know you don’t need me. But, if you want…” His voice turns up at the end, a question she knows is roughly: _Do you want me to stay?_

She opens her mouth once more to tell him to go, but her foolish tongue betrays her. 

“Yes,” she says, softly. “Stay.”

“All right,” he says, simply. “I’ll stay.”

He steps around her, settles onto the narrow bed first, leaving the open side -- the one not bracketed by the wall -- for her. They’ve never done this before, but he must sense that she detests being trapped, quite possibly being aware of the feeling himself. After a moment's hesitation, she follows him, stretching herself out along the length of his body, so that they’re face to face, but not quite touching. She looks up to find his dark eyes patient, but questioning.

“It burned,” is all she says, finally, barely more than a whisper.

His expression doesn’t change. Then, cautiously, he reaches out for her, as though she’s a wounded animal. When it’s clear she isn’t going to shy away, his hand settles on the side of her face, his thumb running along her forehead, brushing the still-damp bangs from her forehead.

She wants more than anything to reach up, to hook her hand around his wrist, but she can’t quite manage it. Her body feels drained, wrung-out; his hand on her face is the only part of her that’s right.

He has traumas of his own, she knows. She’s certain that his includes Scarif as well, but they’re private people used to private terrors, and they don’t speak about it. But she does sometimes hear him at night, calling out unfamiliar names, calling mostly for people she doesn’t know, and a few she can guess at. Sometimes, he says her name, and she’ll lie there, wishing she could make it easier for him and knowing that she can’t.

Cassian stays very still as she curls herself into his body, allowing her to make herself comfortable. Concern practically radiates off him, and maybe it should. They have a long and likely frustrating road ahead of them, and the mere thought of having to get up again in the morning makes Jyn’s head swim with exhaustion.

But, for now, his steady breathing sets the rhythm for her heart, and she is finally safe to close her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As always, commentary and constructive criticism are very much appreciated, if you can spare the time. ♥


End file.
